Fierce Conversations - Susan Scott

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Fierce Conversations was another book that I had to read for school. Going into this book I have to admit I was prejudice, mostly because of how this book was presented. It was for a class that I had started with high hopes for, but quickly lost all enthusiasm and it became my least favourite course.

The professor put this book on the syllabus and then didn't mention it again until almost the end of March when she told us that we needed to have it read for next class.  Um, what? I'm a fast reader, but even I can't finish a book like this in one night. So I was not in the best mood for reading the book, nor was I particularly interested.

I admit that I didn't even want to become interested because I was really unimpressed with this teacher and no longer cared about the class.  But then I decided that this was a book that I was supposed to read (although the majority of the class never did read it) and I could count it as a book towards my yearly count. And besides it is apparently a best seller so it must be somewhat good. (Although so is Twilight, so not sure I can count on Bestsellers).

Susan Scott teachers through this self-help book about how to have fierce conversations. These conversations are not fierce in the sense of scary/fearful, intense, anger-filled conversations, but rather in the intense, personal, honest, lets-move-things-forwards conversations. I did not come across any earth shaking discoveries while reading this book, everything seemed to make sense.  Be honest, tell people how you are feeling about the issue and your thoughts behind it and then listen to their feelings, really listen, and try to understand their thoughts behind it. You want to get to a point of full understanding of an issue, which will not happen until you truly understand their point of view. But I have already known this to be true (although I don't often put it into place since I would rather hide from my feelings and confrontations).

Although Scott does not present any earth shaking ideas in her book, in my opinion anyways, she does present some good, solid, advice. Once I got past my prejudices about the book, I was able to appreciate it for what it was, and had some good conversations with a few of my classmates who had actually read the book about our conversations and how we approach them generally.

This book is best read over a longer period of time (not in the less than a week I took), because to truly benefit from it you will want to digest what has been said and try out some of the assignments. That is if you really want to start having fierce conversations.

I give Fierce Conversations a 3/5 because while it had good advice, it was not much new and I still never fully got over my original feelings of the situation.

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

This was a re-read. I first read this book in my first year of university and I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it either. It was a meh book for me then. However what I am finding is that many books that I read before my third year of university I read with a filter and after re-reading them I see them in a whole new light. Because of this I am probably going to re-read a number of books that I once read and didn’t understand why people liked it.

The back of the book calls this novel a supreme American novel. When I first read it I seemed to have trouble following the entwined lives of the characters, this time around I had no trouble with it at all.  I read this book over March Break (I know, I’m late getting the blog up!) and I really enjoyed it. I did not remember a whole lot about what happened in the novel and found I had a few false memories (Spoiler: I thought Daisy died, but it turns out she ran someone over with a car.).

While reading this book I found myself reflecting on what society is like today and comparing Gatsby’s world with my own. Although there are many telling differences (I am far from rich, I live in the Maritimes of Canada while he lived in New York, I live in the 21^st century, he lived in the early 20^th century), there were many similarities.  Around me I can see many people dissatisfied with their life, but living it anyways because it is the life that society tells them they desire. Like Gatsby I can see many people having idols that they try for so long to attain only to realize that they are no longer what they once imagined. Their fantasy of the idol had long surpassed the reality and their long pursuit ends in melancholy.

I would rate this book a 3.5/5. It’s not quite a four but I really enjoyed it and would recommend it others. It’s a book I think you need to have a bit of life experience to be able to properly understand it, so it is not surprising to me that I didn’t quite get it the first time around.

Brisingr - Christopher Paolini

I only read this book because of the first one. Brinsigr is the third book of the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. My friend gave me Eragon, the first book, as a Christmas present in high school, not to long after it came out, and before the second book came out. I absolutely loved Eragon and could not wait for the second book to come out. The second book Eldest I bought and read shortly after it came out. Then I kind of lost track of the books and never got around to buying the third one. I kept meaning to go back and read the first two again, since I could not really remember what happened in the second book, so I could finally read the third and fourth book. Well, I finally got around to it, and I am not sure when I’ll get around to reading the fourth and final book.

I listened to the first and second novels as audiobooks last year while I was in France and remembered why it was I could not remember what happened in Eldest, it was not that good. It started out fine but the end, horrible. Characters started to feel a bit force. But this is not about the first two novels, this is about the third one.

I decided to give Brisingr a try for two reasons. 1. I wanted to find out what happened to the characters that I had grown to like in the first book and a half. 2. My friend told me that Eldest was the worst in the series and that this one was her favourite.

My reaction? It is not a very good book.  I don’t mind books with a lot of descriptions or a lot of story lines thread throughout, I actually usually enjoy them. More to figure out and more plot twist possibilities, however this book felt really long, and really dragged on. It felt like it could have covered the story in half the time it actually did. There was a lot of details that pulled me out of the story and made me question why it was put in there in the first place. The characters are starting to feel unbelievable and a lot of things seem to be happening more so for matter of convenience than anything. Characters dying because they just aren’t needed anymore. Events happening just in order to get to the next piece of the plot. The writing is not all that great and the story line is getting old. I had been really hopeful about this series, it started out with a pretty good plot idea, good characters with a lot of chance for growth and interesting story arches. But this novel has fallen flat, and I don’t particularly recommend it. If I read the last book (probably not this year, but we’ll see) it will be to find out what happens to one character in particular, I feel there is a lot of promise for the character and a chance for a turn around, although I feel like the author might not head in that direction. We shall see.

Overall I give this book a 2.5/5. It’s okay for what it is, but it could have been so much better with more editing.